Reimagining Aid
Building Partnerships for a New Era of Development
Co-hosted by Aadyanta Advisory (Nepal) and Global Impact Collective (USA)
"If your largest donor disappeared tomorrow, would your organization know what to do next?"
The Old Model Is Ending.
What Comes Next?
Across South Asia and around the world, development organizations are confronting a reality that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Aid budgets are under pressure. Expectations around local ownership continue to rise. Private capital increasingly outweighs official development assistance.
−23.1%
Fall in global ODA in 2025 — the single largest annual decline in the history of development assistance, bringing aid to its lowest point in a decade.
OECD Preliminary 2025 ODA Data (April 2026)
$4 trillion+
The annual SDG financing gap — yet total global ODA in 2025 was only USD 174.3 billion, meeting barely 4 cents of every dollar the world needs to reach the Goals.
UNCTAD SDG Investment Trends Monitor Issue 4
11.1%
Nepal's annual SDG financing gap as a share of GDP — a hole that public budgets alone cannot fill.
NPC SDG Costing and Financing Strategy 2025
Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are reshaping how organizations operate, communicate, and create value. At the same time, the challenges we face—from climate resilience and livelihoods to food systems, education, public health, and inclusion—are becoming more interconnected, complex, and urgent.
In this environment, the question is no longer simply how to deliver projects. The question is:
- How do organizations remain relevant, resilient, and impactful in a rapidly changing world?
- How do we move beyond dependence on traditional funding models?
- How do we build partnerships capable of creating lasting value?
- How do we mobilize new forms of capital, collaboration, innovation, and collective action?
- How do we create organizations and ecosystems that can thrive amid uncertainty?
Built Around a Simple Premise
The organizations that thrive in the coming decade will be those that learn how to work differently—with new partners, new financing models, new technologies, and new forms of collaboration.
Designed for leaders and practitioners from across South Asia, the retreat combines global experience with regional realities to explore how partnership-driven development, market systems approaches, private sector engagement, innovative finance, ecosystem building, and emerging technologies can unlock new pathways to scale, sustainability, and impact.
Nepal faces an annual SDG financing gap equivalent to 11.1% of its GDP — a hole that public budgets alone cannot fill. Bridging it requires private sector investment, blended finance, and partnership models that most organizations in this room have never had to build before.
What Will We Explore Together?
Over two days, July 23–24, 2026 in Kathmandu, participants will engage with questions such as:
- What does the future of development look like in a post-aid world?
- How can organizations build stronger partnerships with businesses, investors, philanthropies, and governments?
- What does effective private sector engagement actually look like?
- How can organizations access new forms of capital and financing?
- What role will AI and emerging technologies play in shaping development outcomes?
- How do we build ecosystems and communities of practice that endure beyond projects and funding cycles?
- What opportunities are emerging across South Asia—and who needs to be at the table to pursue them?
Topics explored include:
Partnership Design & Shared Value
Private Sector Engagement
Market Systems Development
Blended & Catalytic Finance
Ecosystem Building & Collective Action
AI & Emerging Technologies
Opportunity Mapping & Trend Scanning
South Asia Case Studies & Practical Lessons
More Than a Workshop
This is not a conventional conference-room training. Hosted at a residential retreat venue in the foothills of Kathmandu, Reimagining Aid is intentionally designed as a space for reflection, dialogue, learning, and relationship-building.
Alongside facilitated sessions, participants will engage in peer exchange, structured networking, collaborative design exercises, nature walks, wellness activities, and informal conversations with invited practitioners, innovators, investors, and technology leaders.
Our goal is not simply to share frameworks and tools. It is to create the conditions for new partnerships, fresh thinking, and lasting connections.
What Will You Leave With?
New Perspectives
- A deeper understanding of the forces reshaping development
- Practical frameworks for partnership-driven approaches
- Insights into emerging trends, technologies, and opportunities
New Capabilities
- Tools for partnership design and stakeholder engagement
- Greater confidence navigating private sector engagement
- Exposure to blended finance and capital mobilization approaches
New Relationships
- Connections across sectors and geographies
- Access to a growing community of practitioners and innovators
- Potential collaborators, partners, and thought partners
New Opportunities
- Mapped partnership opportunities
- Actionable next steps
- A clearer roadmap for future collaboration
Who Is This Designed For?
While grounded in Nepal's experience, the retreat is designed for participants from across South Asia who are grappling with similar questions around aid transition, local ownership, partnership building, innovation, and sustainable development.
Why This Experience Is Different
Global Partnership Expertise
Participants will learn from practitioners who have designed and led partnerships involving Fortune 100 companies, international NGOs, governments, foundations, and multilateral institutions across more than 80 countries.
Deep Nepal and South Asia Experience
The workshop incorporates practical lessons from Nepal and the broader region, including private sector engagement, market systems development, challenge funds, entrepreneurship ecosystems, digital transformation, and blended finance initiatives.
Action-Oriented Design
The emphasis is not on theory alone. Participants will work through real partnership opportunities, apply practical frameworks, participate in structured design exercises, and develop actionable next steps.
Community Building
Participants become part of an emerging network of practitioners exploring how partnerships, innovation, and collective action can shape the future of development in Nepal and broader South Asia.
Global Meets Local
The workshop combines global experience from organizations such as Microsoft, Fortune 100 companies, international NGOs, and development institutions with practical lessons drawn from Nepal and South Asia's evolving development and innovation ecosystem.
Who Is Behind This?
Aadyanta Advisory (Nepal 🇳🇵)
Aadyanta Advisory is a Nepal-based strategic advisory firm helping organizations navigate the future of development. As aid models evolve and expectations around local ownership, private capital, innovation, and partnerships continue to grow, we work with enterprises, investors, governments, philanthropies, and development actors to build the relationships, ecosystems, and solutions needed to create lasting impact. Through advisory services, ecosystem building, strategic convenings, research, and implementation support, we help unlock capital, scale innovation, strengthen institutions, and foster collaboration across sectors. Our work is guided by a belief that the most complex challenges—and the greatest opportunities—sit at the intersection of markets, technology, policy, and people.
The Global Impact Collective (USA 🇺🇸)
The Global Impact Collective is a U.S. based woman-owned, purpose-driven consultancy reimagining how the world addresses its most urgent challenges, from advancing conservation to human health. With hubs in Seattle and Portland, we collaborate with forward-thinking corporations, nonprofits, philanthropies, and public institutions to drive systemic, sustainable change. We believe real impact begins with empathy. That's why we champion a human-centred approach; designing solutions that not only respond to complex problems but resonate with the people and communities they serve.
Learn From Practitioners
James Bernard
Co-founder, Global Impact Collective
Partnerships, Collective Action & Systems Change
James Bernard co-founded and is CEO of the Global Impact Collective, a mission-driven, female-owned consultancy focused on building solutions that help the people at the center of food systems – starting with farmers and fishers. The Collective uses human-centered design and systems thinking to partner with companies, governments, foundations, and nonprofits to help turn bold ideas into actionable programs across food loss and waste reduction, nature positive frameworks for oceans, regenerative agriculture, sustainable seafood, and supply chain resiliency. James brings more than 30 years of experience leading organizations in a range of sectors and industries, including 15 years at Microsoft, where he led a team focused on partnerships in global education and workforce development. He's a recognized expert on multisector partnerships and has developed dozens of successful and sustainable collaborations between companies, social sector organizations, and the public sector. He lives in Seattle.
Stuti Basnyet
Co-founder and Managing Director, Aadyanta Advisory
Private Sector Engagement, Innovation & Development Transformation
Stuti Basnyet is a strategist, ecosystem builder, and private sector engagement practitioner with two decades of experience helping organizations translate ideas into action and action into impact. Her work has spanned market systems development, innovation, digital transformation, strategic communications, challenge funds, entrepreneurship ecosystems, and cross-sector partnerships across Nepal and South Asia. Over the course of her career, she has designed and launched USAID/Nepal's first strategic communications and private sector-driven initiatives; directed FCDO's USD 24 million Challenge Fund program that catalyzed more than 80,000 jobs and USD 17 million in enterprise growth; led globally recognized communications and outreach initiatives; and supported governments, donors, businesses, and development organizations in building partnerships that unlock shared value. As Managing Director of Aadyanta Advisory and former USAID/Nepal Private Sector Engagement Specialist and Deputy Director of the Program Office, she brings a unique perspective on how organizations can navigate a rapidly changing development landscape by mobilizing capital, strengthening ecosystems, fostering collaboration, and scaling locally driven solutions.
Prasanna KC
Private Sector Development & Investment Advisor, Avinya Advisors
Blended Finance, Private Sector Development, and Economic Growth
Prasanna KC is a private sector development and investment specialist with more than 20 years of experience helping businesses, investors, governments, and development partners unlock growth opportunities across South Asia. His work has spanned commercial banking, investment management, challenge funds, blended finance, entrepreneurship ecosystems, and market systems development, mobilizing more than USD 100 million in investment across diverse sectors. Having worked with institutions including ADB, DFID/FCDO, USAID, KPMG, and leading financial institutions, Prasanna brings a practical understanding of how markets function, how investment decisions are made, and how development organizations can create stronger partnerships with businesses, financial institutions, and investors to achieve sustainable impact at scale.
Nirnaya Bhatta
Partner and Senior Advisor, Aadyanta Advisory
Policy, Markets & Systems Strategist
Nirnaya Bhatta works at the intersection of policy, markets, institutions, and execution. Drawing on experience across economic development, political economy, public policy, and large-scale programme implementation, he helps organizations make sense of complexity and translate ambitious ideas into actionable strategies. His work has contributed to initiatives valued at more than USD 800 million, spanning engagements with institutions such as the World Bank, UKAID, and The Economist Intelligence Unit. Nirnaya brings a systems lens to questions of competitiveness, institutional change, economic transformation, and collective action—helping organizations understand not only how change happens, but why it succeeds or fails.
Abha Dhital
Design, Learning, and Entrepreneurship Advisor, Aadyanta Advisory
Storytelling, Human-Centred Design & Systems Thinking
Abha Dhital brings together the worlds of storytelling, human-centred design, entrepreneurship, and systems thinking. Over the past fourteen years, she has worked across Nepal's development and entrepreneurial ecosystem, helping organizations transform research, insights, and lived experiences into practical programmes, learning journeys, and strategies that drive meaningful change. Her work spans entrepreneurship, livelihoods, resilience, agriculture, climate, and social innovation. Known for her ability to connect people, ideas, and evidence, Abha helps organizations move beyond technical solutions to design approaches that are adaptive, grounded in human realities, and built for long-term impact.
How Would You Like to Experience the Workshop?
Participants may choose between residential and non-residential options.
Residential Experience
For those who wish to fully immerse themselves in the retreat experience. Includes accommodation, meals, refreshments, workshop participation, learning materials, networking activities, and wellness experiences.
Investment: Watch this space for updates.
Non-Residential Experience
For participants who prefer to commute each day. Includes workshop participation, lunch, refreshments, learning materials, and daytime networking activities.
Investment: Watch this space for updates.
A limited number of "early bird" subsidized seats may be available for local NGOs, social enterprises, and emerging leaders whose work aligns closely with the objectives of the workshop.
Is This Retreat Right for You?
- Are you exploring how your organization can remain relevant, resilient, and impactful in a rapidly changing development landscape?
- Are you seeking new ways to engage partners, mobilize resources, build ecosystems, or create sustainable impact?
- Are you interested in learning from and contributing to a diverse group of leaders, practitioners, entrepreneurs, funders, and changemakers?
If so, this workshop may be for you.
The Application Process
To preserve the quality of dialogue and peer learning, participation is intentionally limited and application-based. We are curating a diverse cohort of participants from across development, philanthropy, government, academia, business, and social enterprise sectors.
As part of the application process, we will ask:
- Who are you and what organization or initiative do you represent?
- Why is this workshop relevant to your work at this moment?
- What challenge, opportunity, or partnership question are you currently exploring?
- What do you hope to learn, contribute, or take away from the experience?
Ready to Join the Conversation?
The future of development will not be built by any single donor, government, business, or organization. It will be built through partnerships.
Reimagining Aid brings together people who are actively exploring how to make that future possible. If you're ready to challenge assumptions, build new relationships, rethink what's possible, and help shape what comes next, we invite you to apply.
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis. Participation is intentionally limited to preserve the quality of dialogue and peer learning.